Safe | Leg-Room Hog | Medium Heavy | Minimal Additional Safety Features
The Britax B-Safe 35 is like the Britax B-Safe 35 Elite, but with a harness that must be manually rethreaded, without the extra layer of side impact protection, and a little bit lighter because of it.
Things We Love
- Nice, Simple Design (& Some Color Landmines): This car seat’s design is simple and nice, but not all Britax B-Safe 35 colors are created equally. Black and Slate Strie look nice, but any of the other color options look pretty cheap and unattractive, due both to the shades of the colors themselves and the way the brighter colors seem to emphasize the cheaper fabric used on these seats. Select wisely.
- Taxi and Rideshare-Friendly (American Belt Path): The Britax B-Safe 35 has an American-style belt path, meaning the seat belt only attaches at two points and does not wrap around the back of the car seat. Although the American-style belt path isn’t quite as secure as the European-style belt path, it does still allow for a safe, quick, easy baseless install using a car’s locking seat belt. This is great news for city dwellers or frequent travelers who hail lots of taxis, Ubers, and Lyfts. (Note: Some car seat safety techs recommend using a rolled up towel or pool noodle when installing the car seat using the seat belt, especially on slopey seats. Always check for no more than one inch of movement side-to-side and front-to-back when installing your car seat without a base. See Britax install video here.)
Things We Don't Love As Much
- Minimal Additional Safety Features: Although the Britax B-Safe 35 meets all federal safety requirements, it does not have side impact protection or a load leg/anti rebound bar. It does, however, have some of the Britax signature features, like a steel frame and general (not side impact) SafeCell Impact Protection.
- Some Difficulties with LATCH Install: Some parents have had difficulties using the lower anchors (LATCH) to install this car seat in specific cars. Britax does have a solution for this. The Britax B-Safe car seat bases can be installed using a lap belt instead of LATCH (which is just as safe), and you can get an especially good fit on slopey seats by using a rolled up towel or pool noodle. This is all detailed in the manual.
- Narrow Fit: Parents with larger babies have found that their kiddos grow out of this car seat quite fast, due to its narrowness.
- Rethread Harness: The harness must be rethreaded as your baby grows. This is kind of a pain, but thankfully, not something you have to do very often.
- So/So Canopy: The canopy on Britax seats is nothing to write home about.
- Verging Toward Legroom Hog: At 26.5 inches deep with the base, this car seat takes up more space than the Nuna Pipa and some Cybex Aton models. If you have an especially compact car and need extra front seat legroom, this might not be the ideal car seat for you. An inch or two makes a surprisingly big difference!
- Not Light, Not Heavy: Weighing in at 10lbs, this sort of a medium-weight car seat.
- Limited Stroller Compatibility: This car seat is only compatible with Baby Jogger, Britax, and Bob strollers.
Compare It To Other Infant Car Seats
How To
- Install the Britax B-Safe Elite 35 + base using LATCH
- Install the Britax B-Safe Elite 35 without the base
Buy It
- Britax B-Safe 35 – $200
- Discounted seats are available in select colors (usually the less attractive ones though) for as low as $168 on albeebaby.com.
Gallery
